BUGA tardigrades

Slightly tricky. As you may have noticed the Water Bear web base is a translation from the monthly German "Bärtierchen-Journal". But it must be admitted that the BUGA ("Bundesgartenschau", to be translated as German "National Garden Show") is merely of local and regional interest. You will be able to deduct this from the fact that the word "National" is included in its name whereas the word "German" has been omitted. And all of us know that e.g. the English, the French or the Chinese gardening traditions are definitely coming closer to the ideal of perfect gardening. Nevertheless we will give it a try here.

The Munich BUGA took place in 2005, twelve years back from now. From a tardigrades' point of view each BUGA opening is marking some kind of year zero settling date. Everything will be digged up, new rocks and seeds placed, everything being small, neat and somewhat sterile in the beginning. This is the point where settling pioneers like the tardigrades come in. We had a first look at their progress in 2015.

This is what the Munich BUGA area looked like in 2015, 10 years after its creation in 2005: marvelous flower meadows.

Though certainly unwittingly, some huge tardigrade settling areas had been installed as well.

But it took some time until the tardigrades became aware of the potential and started living there.

Minute traces of early moss cushions and lichens on a newly installed tardigrade settling area.
Image taken in 2015.

Yet the species diversity appears to be very modest. Only Macrobiotus sp. tardigrades have become inhabitants of those BUGA rocks until now. Please find a few photographs of their eggs below:

BUGA tardigrade eggs. Egg diameter ca. 80 µm.

In contrast to the Macrobiotus eggs from Krka shown in the previous issue the egg protrusions of the BUGA tardigrades are much bigger. As a consequence their perimeter count is lower. Besides, it must be admitted that scanning electron microscope portraits of tardigrade eggs are much more attractive than those gained by means of the light microscope. Nevertheless we have worked hard to do a good job. Just have a look at our results:

Detail view of the BUGA tardigrade eggs. The undisturbed 3D structure of the protrusions can be figured out here. Image width ca. 40 µm. Oil immersion objective.

Detail view of the BUGA tardigrade eggs under enhanced cover glass pressure. The protrusions are squeezed but the granulated ("perl chain") surface structure of the egg itself is becoming visible. Image width ca. 40 µm. Oil immersion objective.

We can conclude from all this that tardigrade diversity development will take its time. Older national parks will be always superior in this respect, in a similar manner as complex city cultures are developing over centuries. Note that not everything can be built up from scratch within a few years.

© Text, images and video clips by  Martin Mach  (webmaster@baertierchen.de).
Water Bear web base is a licensed and revised version of the German language monthly magazine  Bärtierchen-Journal . Style and grammar amendments by native speakers are warmly welcomed.

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